


A Thorough Cleaning

by gonnaflynow



Series: Eruri Week 2013 [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Eruri Week, Erwin is completely wrecked, Fluff, Levi is surprisingly caring, M/M, eruri - Freeform, everyone is a lazy piece of shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 12:05:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gonnaflynow/pseuds/gonnaflynow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erwin throws a post-mission pity party. Levi isn't invited.</p><p>Day One – Cleanup</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thorough Cleaning

_Three days._

Three fucking days he was granting Erwin to hole up in his room. Paperwork and debriefs be damned, the man was only allowed to throw himself a pity party for so long, or at least one to which Levi wasn't invited.

The corporal waited until shortly after the sun had set before stalking moodily towards the officers' wing of the castle. He stopped just short of the door to Erwin's chambers, pausing to take in his surroundings: the faint flicker of a candle was just visible from under the doorframe and Levi swore he could smell stale air leaking from the room (Mike was beginning to rub off on him, he supposed). 

 _Enough is enough_ , he thought.  _He can only stay in there for so long._

"I'm coming in," Levi announced after two sharp raps on the door, only to find it shut tightly. He tried the handle again on the off-chance that it was stuck, but it was clear that it was locked from the inside.

"Erwin, tell me you didn't actually lock yourself in the fucking room."

No response.

"Am I going to have to break this thing down to get a response from you?"

A hurried scrape of a chair and a frantic rustling of papers followed, and the lock clicked open, causing the door to gently swing inwards and hit the corporal with a sliver of fluttering yellow light from head to toe.

Levi bristled at the sudden brightness and pushed the door open the rest of the way, revealing a very haggard Erwin Smith. His stern features had taken on a weary droop, deep under eye circles dominating his expression as he stared into the oblivion beyond the doorway. Wisps of hair had fallen across his forehead, a far cry from his usual immaculate hairstyle, and noticeable scruff had formed on his jaw, glinting a dull gold in the flicker of the candlelight.

"The scruffy dog look doesn't become you," Levi sighed, stepping the rest of the way into the room and shutting the door behind him. "Leave that sort of thing to Mike."

Now that his eyes had adjusted, Levi saw that Erwin wasn't the only thing in bad shape. The commander's desk, usually kept tidy by routine and by Levi's habitual threatening, was completely piled with haphazard stacks of reports and candles burned down to the bottom of the wick, wax threatening to overflow from the shallow base onto the unprotected wood below. Around Erwin's chair, countless discarded balls of parchment covered the ground like snow, the man presumably not making an effort to keep them near the trash bin once that had filled up. Two empty glasses hid amongst the debris on the desk – a third oddly lying on the windowsill on its side – along with an unstoppered and nearly empty bottle of bourbon.

Levi took in the sight with a growing air of dismay. To his credit, Erwin looked quite sheepish as the other officer surveyed the scene, feet shuffling and eyes downcast.

"I would say I'm surprised, but to be honest I should have expected this," the corporal scoffed, folding his arms in front of him and peering at Erwin down his nose as much as it was possible to do so with their height difference. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

Erwin looked in Levi's general direction and tried to let the exhaustion in his face do the talking for him.

Levi groaned and walked over to the desk, kicking his way through the paper balls and reaching for the oil lamp propped on a shelf, cold from disuse. When it refused to start ( _Out of oil_ , he realized,  _how has this man been able to see at all?_ ), he dug through the desk drawers to find a pack of matches and proceeded to light some of the taller candles around the room before turning back to Erwin with a nonplussed look.

"I'm probably going to regret asking this. Have you slept at all in the past three days?"

Erwin shook his head.

"Have you eaten?"

Erwin paused a moment and then shook his head again.

Levi sighed and carded a hand through his hair. "This one is painfully obvious, but hopefully you'll exceed my expectations: have you showered?"

Erwin's eyed widened and he craned his neck down to take a sniff of his shirt, immediately grimacing and pushing the offending garment away.

"Remind me never to leave you on your own again for more than a few hours," Levi snorted, grabbing the taller man by his bolo tie and yanking him forward, Erwin stumbling over his own feet in the process. "Here's what we're gonna do, you sad sack of shit. First, you're taking a shower. The fact that I can smell you is proof that you haven't done fuck all about hygiene in the last three days, not to mention the animal that crawled on your neck and died. I want you showered and shaved, teeth brushed, and wearing something clean, and I want it done in the next thirty minutes, am I clear? And don't you just fucking stand in the spray like some MP idiot who's just seen a titan: soap exists for a reason." 

During Levi's speech, Erwin had pulled himself closer until the entire front of his body was lightly pressed against Levi, large hands tenuously running down the smaller man's spine towards his waist.

"I'm not touching you until you clean yourself up, you gross old man," Levi snarled, shoving him into the bathroom and slamming the door for effect. He pressed an ear to the door and was rewarded with the disharmonious clinking of belts and the rush of water from the shower head. Pleased, he left Erwin to the task, dropping his cloak and jacket to the couch and eyeing the messy scene behind him. 

"Would it have been  _that fucking hard_  to keep these papers in order?" Levi muttered angrily, refraining from sweeping the piles to the floor in frustration. Instead, he turned to Erwin's closet, returning with his empty clothes hamper ( _the same clothes for **three days**_ , he thought murderously) to use as a makeshift trash bin, sweeping the paper balls in with an unused broom. He set the bin upright and turned to the windows, throwing them wide in the hopes that the fresh evening air would permeate the room and rid it of the stale odor. As an afterthought, Levi capped the bourbon and tossed it in with the discarded paper – better to keep Erwin's grief drinking to a minimum.

With the area around the desk finally clear, Levi sat down and got to work on the remaining paperwork. He found that Erwin had kept documents in relatively organized areas, despite the messy piles, and that most of the boring work had already been done. A small pile of blank letterhead sat to his left, along with a list of scribbled names.

Levi sighed and picked up the list, scanning through Erwin's scrawl. More soldiers than usual had died in the latest mission – a total of eighteen – but none of the names rang a bell other than fleeting recognition. 

 _At least it makes it easier on both of us_.

He cleared the last of the reports from Erwin's desk pad, sorting them into their respective outgoing piles, and started on the death letters.

Some time later, as Levi signed the last of the letters, Erwin appeared from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, a towel draped around his neck. He stared at his bed dreamily, unaware that Levi was still present. The lance corporal stood from the desk and walked around to survey him. While he seemed to have followed all of Levi's instructions, it was clear that his fatigue got the better of him: several spots on his body had still not been dried, and there were still large swatches of scruff and shaving cream on his jaw.

"Remind me how you ever got promoted to commander?" said Levi, raising an eyebrow. Erwin looked confused and opened his mouth to speak, but was silenced by Levi's hand over his lips. 

"You're a hopeless shithead, you know," he said fondly, pressing a hand to Erwin's muscled chest and pushing him back into the bathroom. "Hold still, I need to finish drying you off." He grabbed a fresh towel from the rack beside the door and unfolded it with a flourish, attacking the wet spots on Erwin's body like he did the streaks on the windows. The commander stood stock still while he worked, thighs trembling as he held himself in place and fought the exhaustion threatening to topple him to the ground.

Satisfied with his work, Levi wrapped the towel loosely around Erwin's waist and reached up to grab at his jaw, twisting it this way and that to inspect his shave. His fingers brushed over a number of patches of stubble, and with a sigh he released his face and reached for the shaving cream.

"Sit," he told Erwin, pointing to the toilet. Erwin sat. Levi dampened a flannel and gently wiped away the last of the old shaving cream from Erwin's chin before applying a generous new coating in its place. He efficiently began scraping away the remnant stubble, pausing every so often to wipe down the blade or readjust Erwin's face to better catch the light. The commander's eyes soon slipped closed and he leaned further into Levi's touch, letting soft noises tumble unchecked from his mouth with every brush of Levi's fingers.

"Hey, watch it, you numbnut, I don't wanna nick your face…" Levi warned, trailing off when his eyes met with Erwin's. The other man's pupils were completely blown, and Levi would have attributed it to the lack of light if not for the fact that he was staring straight at him, blue eyes swirling with desire. 

Levi groaned and readjusted his grip on Erwin's chin, quickly finishing off the shave. As soon as he had finished wiping Erwin's face, it came crashing into his stomach, hands finding their way around Levi's waist.

Levi pulled a face and slowly pried Erwin's arms off of him, pushing the man back to rest against the wall where he waited with sad eyes at the denial.

"Bed," Levi ordered, already leaning down to snake an arm around Erwin's back and hoist him up. "You're too damn sleepy to do much of anything." 

A voice of protest died in Erwin's throat as the two men hobbled across the threshold, Levi grunting under the brunt of the commander's weight. When they reached the bed, Levi shook off Erwin's wandering hands once more and flipped him onto the bed using the last of his strength. The other man hit the mattress with a muffled groan, his face contorting into a grimace.  

Levi stood back and watched him writhe in discomfort with a concerned frown. He tentatively pressed a hand between Erwin's shoulderblades, gently massaging the area.

"Here?" he asked, voice soft and low. Erwin let out a pained groan in response.

"Roll over, you oaf. Guess I'll have to take care of this, too," Levi sighed, the bite in his voice gone. He quickly stripped off his boots and socks as well as the lower half of his gear before climbing onto the bed and straddling Erwin, settling himself on top of his lower back and beginning to knead the afflicted area. Erwin responded immediately, body becoming pliant in Levi's skilled hands as the corporal worked up and down his torso.

He continued in silence for a while before Erwin reached a hand up to tug on his shirt.

"Need something?" Levi asked, pausing.

Erwin groaned and tugged at his shirt again, then moved down to pull at the waistband of his pants.

"You want these off?" he asked incredulously.

Levi thought he heard something along the lines of "hurts my back" mumbled into the bedspread.

"Bullshit," said Levi, swinging a leg off Erwin and quickly divesting himself of his gear straps, shirt, and trousers. He hauled himself back up on the bed to find that Erwin had rolled onto his back, loosening the towel and revealing his half-hard cock.

"You've got to be kidding me."

Erwin smiled lazily.

"After all this you seriously think I'm going to fuck you tonight?" 

Erwin had the audacity to look hopeful before Levi shot him down with a pointed glare.

"Go to bed, you asshole." 

Levi gave him a hard shove, causing Erwin to roll across the bed and stumble to his feet. Levi tromped towards the dresser, tossing a pair of black pajama pants at Erwin and pulling out an oversized sleep shirt for himself. 

"Put those on and get in bed," he groaned, turning towards the door. "I'm going to blow the candles out so the last three days of effort don't go up in a blaze."

He came back in a few minutes to a softly snoring Erwin, covers pulled up tight around him. Levi sighed and leaned back against the door, allowing a small smile to sneak onto his weary face. He plodded over to the other side of the bed, climbing underneath the covers and squirming until he found a comfortable position. Erwin's strong arms encircled him almost immediately, pulling him into a loose embrace against his chest.

"I don't deserve you," Erwin mumbled into Levi's shoulder. 

"Damn right you don't, you self-pitying ass. Now go the fuck to sleep before I do something I'll regret in the morning."

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to turn into porn but then Levi, Erwin, and I all got lazy. :P
> 
> Beta'd by the fabulous crowley-kingoftrunks! If you wanna creep on me, I can be found on tumblr at snk-sexual.


End file.
